To me, black hat is actually an ethical thing. It boils down to being a personal choice for each SEO. I happen to prefer spending my energy (and client’s $) on tactics that are solid and have long-term benefits. If an SEO uses black hat techniques for a client’s site that later gets blacklisted, who is going to pay for fixing the mess? SEO or client? LOL.

I do agree that all SEOs should know all 3 shades of SEO:

#1 – Know the Black Tactics so you know what not to do and what you’re up against (especially when a competitor is using it). Occasionally there are countermeasures to take – and Google has been (finally) stepping up to the plate and resolving much of that for us. Woohoo for G!

#2 – Know the Grey Tactics. Some Greys, especially new creative ones, are usually not penalized (yet). But if doing it will benefit or help clarify things for my client’s customers, I’m apt to implement – and just keep an eye out for it. From my experience, some grey tactics were really good ideas; but then some black hatters found ways to exploit it, ruining the “benefits” for everyone. If you had employed it with good intentions, sometimes you got bitten when Google countered with an algorithm update. (You know the saying, “It’s not nice to fool Mother Nature, …or Google!”)

#3 – Know, understand and embrace the White Hat Tactics… That’s for me and I’m all over it. It’s a long list of things to do, but it keeps evolving and getting re-prioritized. My list has over 200 items that I’ve been compiling since I started in 2003. And it’s squeaky clean. To implement most or all does take time and money. My Gold Clients get them all – slowly implemented to keep their traffic and conversion bars climbing. Gold clients are happy clients! Happy clients = golden me!

Now, Kimberlie did raise an excellent, tempting application that jolted even me into reconsidering the “temporary impact” benefits of black hat: the one-time event site. But, then I slapped myself, because that’s got social media optimization and content blogging strategies written all over it. Duh!

Businesses and SEOs comprise all kinds of people, ideas, ethics, effort, goals, etc. – definitely keeping life interesting. And surely there are many black hatters out there with thrilled clients. I’m truly happy for their mutual joyful bonding. Just not my cup a tea…

I’m a white-hat nerd who embraces Karma. Namaste.

Question re: Places

I click most red balloons and it takes me to the businesses Places page.

But in some cases, clicking the red balloon takes me directly to their website. How does that happen? thank you.

Valuable feedback, Nyagoslav. Thanks!

I’ve been trying to get my business on the top 7 for Google Places for months now… I know how important it is for a local business to get listed there… I still haven’t got there.

I run my business out of my home and I’ve been told that Google won’t normally list a business that’s located at a home residence on Google Places first page. Is this true? If so, is there any way to get around this or will I actually have to go lease an actual business site?

Rick

Regarding what Linda said, I’d like to add that actually to get the red balloon, but not a red circle you will need to list the address the format Google recommends, or you might have serious troubles. The problem is that Google often times does not recognize the address and that potentially causes troubles with the rankings. Furthermore, if you hide your address that could also cause decrease in organic rankings later on.

Regarding the points in the post, unfortunately Google is recently publishing very small part of the information you mentioned. Additional details are gone for more than a month now, the description was missing for about 3-4 weeks, the hours of operation tend to disappear every now and then, and currently it seems that there are troubles with the website’s URL…

Sigh? 🙂

My 2 stotinkas (the Bulgarian equivalent of cent)

Greetings,
Nyagoslav

Since Categories help with ranking, I refer to Google’s Quality Guidelines. They are guite clear on what can and can’t be used.

Categories: Provide at least one category from the suggestions provided in the form as you type. Aim for categories that are specific, but brief.
•Categories should say what your business is (e.g. Hospital), not on what it does (e.g. Vaccinations) or things it sells (e.g. Sony products or printer paper). This information can be added in your description or as custom attributes.
•Categories should not contain location-based information (for example, Dog Walker Los Angeles is not permitted).
•Only one category is permitted per entry field. Do not “stuff” entry fields with multiple categories.

The Quality Guidelines are more than helpful, at least for me. http://www.google.com/support/places/bin/answer.py?answer=107528

Susan

Wanted to add some important info about #2.

“Make sure it is the phone number you want potential clients/ customers to reach you at.”

People could take that wrong and hurt their rankings I’m afraid. If people take that literally they may add their cell or Gvoice #.

You must use your MAIN local #. The one that’s likely in the phone book if you are an established business. This number is linked to all your Google trust points across the web and has very important impact on your ranking.

Also best practice for Google Places is NOT to add any other number in Places. No cell, 800#, alt # or fax. Places is easily confused and phone # is the most important piece of your core data.

Address was not mentioned, but it’s part of the core data that affects your ranking as well and Google can only match up your trust points if everything is an EXACT match. So be sure you list it in the format that’s most often mentioned on the Internet. N. abbreviated but Suite spelled out or whatever the case may be. Get this wrong and you’ll lose trust points too.

FYI “Google Trust Points” is a Lindaism 🙂 that includes citations, reviews and everything else G evaluates to determine a business is legit.
Bottom line his he who has the most trust points in a market wins BUT they only count if they are an EXACT match. (That’s now only true with 1 of the algos, there are 2 algos and the other one does not depend on trust points.)

My 2 cents…

Linda